Hoping Didn’t Help
When Buba got sick with Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease, we hoped Tiny wouldn’t get it. Days went by and she seemed fine. But then, last Wednesday night, she came down with a fever. We hoped she would get a mild case, since the virus took longer to appear in her. And we hoped she’d handle it better than Buba, since she tends be more of a trouper when sick. But, unfortunately, hoping didn’t help.
Tiny’s fever lasted for 3 days and then the mouth sores began to appear. Sadly, she has gotten way more mouth sores than Buba, and to say that she’s miserable is an understatement. Yesterday was so bad. Tiny didn’t want to eat anything, and had a very difficult time sleeping. She woke up in pain five times last night, and each time when I went in she would mumble through her tears, “It’s hurtin’. My tongue is hurtin’.” (She has sores all along the perimeter of her tongue.)
I have continued to give her the generic Children’s Motrin, which she takes very well, but she’s still in a great deal of pain. Today she went through several periods of intense crying where she was completely inconsolable. She screamed and cried so much that she nearly lost her voice. It broke my heart to see her so upset. I can only hope that today was the worst of it and we’ll soon be on the road to recovery.
Fortunately, Buba is feeling much, much better. He’s still eating mostly soft foods, but he is clearly not in much pain (no longer taking any Motrin) and is just so much happier than he was all last week. I’m hoping that HFMD will soon be a distant memory, and that my kids will be the lucky ones who never, ever get it again.
Sickness Strikes
Saturday morning, neither Buba nor Tiny was up when the moon changed into a sun (at 6:35am) on their Good Nite Lite. This is very, very unusual. Buba’s normal wake up time is between 6 and 6:30am. I think Tiny would sleep later, but once Buba is up she tends to wake up shortly after. T and I didn’t think much of the few extra minutes of sleep. Perhaps it was the beginning of a transition to sleeping later in the morning. One can only hope so, right?
By midmorning, I was beginning to see the sleeping in as a symptom that something unpleasant was headed our way. Buba was pretty lethargic as we attempted to run a few errands after breakfast, and even began to cry and request going home while we picked up new books at the library (something he loves to do!). Not good. He barely ate any lunch and fell right asleep when I put him down for a nap, without his usual routine of bouncing and singing in his crib. He cried a bit in the middle of his nap, but managed to fall back to sleep and got in the full two hours. But he was a complete grump when he woke up. Also not good. By that time, he felt warm to me, so I took his temperature- 102.6! I gave him a does of generic Tylenol and within an hour he seemed like his normal, happy self. I decided to give him another dose before bedtime, to make sure he’d be comfortable for sleeping, and hoped we were dealing with some sort of 24 hour bug.
Saturday morning, Buba was screaming for me at 5:45am. Very unusual. I went right in and he was hot. I gave him another dose of the medicine and asked him if he still wanted to rest since the sun was not glowing yet. He agreed to rest quietly (and did!), and I went back to bed. But Saturday wasn’t a great day either. Buba was cranky and still not eating much. At bedtime, I took his temperature again (he was due for another does of medicine), and it was a whopping 103.1! Not good at all. After taking the medicine, he slept from about 7:30 until 11:00 when he woke up crying for me. He still felt warm and it had been four hours, so I gave him another dose of the sweet smelling, purple stuff and hoped he’d make it until the morning.
Buba woke up at 5:20 this morning, and I went in immediately. He didn’t feel as warm, so I asked him to just rest until he saw the sunshine. I wanted to take his temperature before giving him any generic Tylenol, but knew that Tiny would stir if I took him out of his crib. He rested quietly (maybe even went back to sleep) and was up calling for me the second the Good Nite Lite changed. Finally some typical behavior was back. And he seemed to be in good spirits. I hoped that we were through with whatever bug he had caught. I checked his temp and it was down to 100.1. Not great, but better.
I asked Buba what he would like for breakfast and he requested raisins and a strawberry breakfast bar. He was standing at his high chair saying, “Eat! Eat!” so I put him right in and threw some raisin on the tray. Buba stuffed several into his mouth and then started to cry. One by one, he pulled them out and threw them on the floor. Not good. Tiny joined him, and I handed them both a plate containing a cereal bar, some yogurt, and some cut up frozen strawberries. Buba ate most of the cereal bar, a few bites of yogurt and all of his strawberries. Things were looking good. Until I went to brush his teeth.
I know Buba is getting at least one of his second molars, so I brushed very, very lightly, but he screamed and started swatting at the toothbrush. Never before has this happened. I removed the toothbrush, and found it lightly covered with blood. I didn’t waste anytime getting myself and the kids ready and out the door to our pediatrician’s office. Fortunately it was still early enough for us to be seen as a walk-in. We waited forever, but once he was seen, it didn’t talk long for the nurse practitioner to conclude that Buba has Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease (so far, with no rash). Very common for a kid his age, very painful, and no real treatment.
So now we just do what we can to help make him more comfortable. I’m alternating generic Tylenol and generic Motrin, but he’s still noticeably miserable at times and not sleeping well (which means I’m not sleeping well). He hates the Motrin and vomited the first dose I gave him, which is not good since that’s the one that will help with the pain. Thus far, Tiny is showing no symptoms, but it could be just a matter of time. And wouldn’t you know it- this is the one week of the summer that T is teaching an enrichment class for his school district.
I know we’ll get through this. We’re certainly not the first family to be hit with this nasty virus. Still if you’ve been through this already, any tips you have to offer or words of encouragement would be appreciated.
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I realize I’ve been quite wordy lately. Thanks for reading all the way to the end. 
My Needa Monkey
It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything about our sleep issues (here and here). Basically, what happened was that the night wakings continued to the point where I was going out of my mind. Tiny was waking up every night and was waking Buba up with her screaming. Then it got to the point where she was waking up multiple times in one night, and that was when I said enough is enough. I read through Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and determined that although some night waking in toddlers is considered normal, the number of times per week that Tiny was waking was not. I firmly believe that the initial night wakings were due to bad dreams. However, I think she then figured out that if she called us in the middle of the night, we would come, and this encouraged her to continue to wake and call for us. Therefore, a plan of action was needed. We purchased a Good Nite Lite and talked about staying quiet as long as the moon was glowing (all night long). If Tiny didn’t wake up and call for Mommy or Daddy, we would continue with whatever plans we had for the following day. If Mommy had to get up in the night to answer her crying calls, all plans would be cancelled. After one cancelled playdate, the night wakings basically stopped. Tiny still occasionally wakes in the night and calls for me, but it’s very, very rare now. And when she does call for me, it is clear that she has been frightened by something. Often she’s crying while asleep, and a gentle back rub along with some reassuring words calms her down quickly. I don’t cancel plans on the days that follow those types of night wakings. If she truly needs me, she needs me. I just don’t like being played.
So we finally had the night wakings under control when Buba decided that it was time to explore getting out of his crib. (Yes, he still wears a sleep sack. That has not stopped him.) To be fair, Tiny was the one who climbed out first, but her experience terrified her, and she hasn’t even attempted to climb out since. Buba, our careful observer, picked up on her strategies and perfected them to the point where he could get out and land safely on the floor. However, he would then cry and want to be put back into his crib only to do it again and again. Then one night, I decided not to go in right away. I let him cry for a few minutes and then quickly peeked in and did a quick scan of the room. I didn’t see him in the room, so I assumed he was still in his crib, which I did not get a good look at, and was just protesting going to sleep. I waited… 5 minutes… 10 minutes… 15 minutes. Finally I figured I should go in and calm him down. To my complete surprise, he was standing on the floor at the far end of his crib, holding onto the bars and screaming his head off. Yes, he had climbed out of the crib, but he had chosen to stay in his bedroom (the door was wide open and there was no gate up) and not to pull out any books or toys. I said nothing to him. Just put him back in his crib (the crying stopped instantly) and walked out the door.
I believe we had at least a couple of nights of Buba staying in his crib until he figured out that he could climb out of his crib and directly into Tiny’s crib without ever touching the floor. Their cribs are side by side, maybe a foot or so apart on the only wall of their room that doesn’t have any windows. He seemed to think this was fantastic. Tiny, however, was not amused. More screaming. More crying. We considered a crib tent, but decided not to go that way if we didn’t have to. So instead, we introduced three sleep rules: 1) stay in bed, 2) lie down, 3) go to sleep. And if the rules were followed, Buba got to play with a set of toys (an odd bunch of small toys picked up at a yard sale) in the morning. This worked for about a week.
T and I talked about possible solutions- move Tiny’s crib to one of the walls with window and hope she won’t mess with the cordless blackout blinds, get a crib tent for Buba’s crib, do nothing and just keep dealing night by night. It might surprise you to know that we chose the last option. But here’s the thing- Buba only climbs into Tiny’s crib once. After we put him back in his crib, he’s done and will go to sleep.
It was all very puzzling to me until Thursday night. It wasn’t long after we’d said our good nights that I heard Buba scream as though his arm had just been cut off. I went back into the kids’ room to find him still in his crib, but screaming and reaching towards Tiny’s crib. I asked him what was wrong and he told me repeatedly, “My needa monkey.” I instantly knew what he meant. Tiny has a soother attached to her crib that has a monkey who swings back and forth while soft music plays. Buba has one too, but his is a fish, and he wants a monkey.
I turned the monkey on, and Buba’s crying stopped immediately. Really? That was it. I walked back to the kitchen and told T what had just happened, and we both had the same thought. Perhaps another monkey soother would keep Buba in his crib. As I thought back about all the nights I had gone in to put him back into his crib, I recalled that most of the time, he was caught either turning the soother on or standing right in front of it and watching the activity inside. Maybe the climbing out is all about getting to the monkey and turning it on, which is why he’s okay with being put back in his crib.
So on Friday, I set out in search of another monkey crib soother. I first checked multiple message boards to see if I could pick up a used one, but there weren’t any for sale in our area. Amazon.com sells one and I could get free shipping, but I decided to try Toys R Us first. They had exactly one left, but for $45, I decided to let them keep it. T said we’d place the Amazon order after the kids were in bed, but of course, last night was the first in many, many, many nights that Buba did not climb into Tiny’s crib. So who knows what’s going on? Does he need a monkey or not?
T and I decided again to go back to our do nothing plan. The monkey soother is in our Amazon.com shopping cart, but I’m no longer convinced that it would be money well spent. I suppose only time will tell.
4th of July Fun
This was Tiny and Buba’s third 4th of July, but really it’s the first one where we attempted to participate in any associated activities.
Their first 4th
Their second 4th
The first year, they were just shy of 4 month old, and I cannot even begin to tell you how we spent that day. The second year, we were visiting my family in Iowa. I remember that there was a big cookout, but I don’t believe we took them to any parades or festivals.
So this year, it was quite a change. We started out by heading over to a small carnival in a neighboring town on the 3rd.
an attempt to get a shot of the two with their first carnival prizes
playing the “pick a ducky” game
having fun in the bouncy house
riding their first carousel ponies
When asked about their favorite part, Buba said his favorite part was all of it, while Tiny’s favorite part was “eatin da fried dough.” If I hadn’t been so busy chowing down on some fried dough myself, I’d have gotten a picture of that too.
The next day we headed over to Grammy and Grandpa’s house. We went down to the town center to see the kids’ bike parade and then had a picnic in the park. After a nap, Buba and Tiny wanted to brave the heat and play outside for a while.
sprinkler fun
riding around the cul-de-sac
nature hike
With a 7:15pm bedtime, there were no fireworks to be seen this year, but perhaps in another few years I’ll brave the traffic and crowds and take Buba and Tiny to see the display on the esplanade.
It’s All Gone
This morning, as I was in the kitchen making breakfast, Tiny and Buba were playing with Hot Wheels in the living room. Tiny had taken the plastic Ziploc bag of cars out of the toy drawer, and was rolling them one by one across the hardwood floor to Buba, who sat a few feet away. They both thought that this was great fun. When Tiny ran out of cars, this is what I heard:
Tiny: It’s all gone.
Buba: I lika mo (more) cars peese (please)!
Tiny: No, it’s all gone. See? (showing Buba the empty bag)
Buba: It’s empee (empty). No mo.
Buba sings: It’s all gone. No mo. It’s all gone. No mo…
It was such a simple conversation, but so nice to hear them using their words with each other- something I feel like I often have to remind them to do, as there is often a lot of pushing, grabbing, grunting, and screaming involved in their playing these days. It’s just nice to know that they have it in them to play together nicely. And I’m quite proud of how their language is developing. Just this past fall, they were speaking mostly one word (Buba) and two word (Tiny) phrases. And a lot of what they were saying was just repeating what T and I were saying. But now they can express complete thoughts and even hold conversations entirely on their own. I know this is the normal way things progress, but it’s still amazing to me.